Receptive ecumenism and the charism of a partner church : the example of justification

The notion of ecumenical receptivity is an invitation and a challenge to our churches. It proposes that the ecumenical encounter with another church tradition is an event of the Holy Spirit. In the otherness of the other tradition, the Spirit of God offers us a gift. In this understanding a central dimension of ecumenical action involves a stance of openness to the Spirit and the attempt to discern the Spirit. Paul Murray has pointed out that ‘receptive ecumenical awakening is properly a matter of the heart before it is a matter of the head; a matter of falling in love with the experienced presence of God in the people, practices, even structures of another tradition and being impelled thereby to search for ways in which all impediments to closer relationships will be overcome’. Ecumenical receptivity encourages a stance before the other tradition that expects to find this tradition a place of grace. And the gift of the Spirit is to be found not only in the personal, but also in the structural and institutional dimensions of the other tradition

Ecology at the Heart of Faith

Beginning with the words, "One of the gifts we have received from the twentieth century is a picture of Earth as our shared home," Denis Edwards helps the general reader, the preacher, the spiritual director, the student and the theologian tear down the walls that too often separate mysticism, theology, prophecy, poetry, and science. In a world born of the "big bang," Edwards shows that humanity and the world are together being made into the image of God. The heart of faith is an ecological communion holds together and grows in love toward the fullness of life imaged in the Resurrection of Jesus

Ecology at the Heart of Faith

Beginning with the words, "One of the gifts we have received from the twentieth century is a picture of Earth as our shared home," Denis Edwards helps the general reader, the preacher, the spiritual director, the student and the theologian tear down the walls that too often separate mysticism, theology, prophecy, poetry, and science. In a world born of the "big bang," Edwards shows that humanity and the world are together being made into the image of God. The heart of faith is an ecological communion holds together and grows in love toward the fullness of life imaged in the Resurrection of Jesus

Enhancement of adaptive observer robustness applying sliding mode techniques

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.The problem studied in this paper is one of improving the performance of a class of adaptive observer in the presence of exogenous disturbances. The H1 gains of both, a conventional and the newly proposed sliding-mode adaptive observer, are evaluated to assess the effect of disturbances on the estimation errors. It is shown that if the disturbance is \matched" in the plant equations, then including an additional sliding-mode feedback injection term, dependent on the plant output, improves the accuracy of observation

Structural identifiability of surface binding reactions involving heterogeneous analyte : application to surface plasmon resonance experiments

Binding affinities are useful measures of target interaction and have an important role in understanding biochemical reactions that involve binding mechanisms. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) provides convenient real-time measurement of the reaction that enables subsequent estimation of the reaction constants necessary to determine binding affinity. Three models are considered for application to SPR experiments—the well mixed Langmuir model and two models that represent the binding reaction in the presence of transport effects. One of these models, the effective rate constant approximation, can be derived from the other by applying a quasi-steady state assumption. Uniqueness of the reaction constants with respect to SPR measurements is considered via a structural identifiability analysis. It is shown that the models are structurally unidentifiable unless the sample concentration is known. The models are also considered for analytes with heterogeneity in the binding kinetics. This heterogeneity further confounds the identifiability of key parameters necessary for reliable estimation of the binding affinit

A note on improvement of adaptive observer robustness

International audienceIn this paper the problem of adaptive observer design in the presence of disturbances is studied, and an augmented adaptive observer is proposed. First, the $H_{\infty}$ gain of a conventional adaptive observer is estimated, which characterizes the effect of disturbances on output errors. Next, it is shown that if the disturbance is ''matched'' in the plant equations, then it is possible to introduce additional sliding-mode feedback, dependent on the plant output, improving the accuracy of observation. Simulation results confirm the improvement

Cheminformatics-aided pharmacovigilance: application to Stevens-Johnson Syndrome

Objective Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) models can predict adverse drug reactions (ADRs), and thus provide early warnings of potential hazards. Timely identification of potential safety concerns could protect patients and aid early diagnosis of ADRs among the exposed. Our objective was to determine whether global spontaneous reporting patterns might allow chemical substructures associated with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) to be identified and utilized for ADR prediction by QSAR models

Sequence and gene content of a large fragment of a lizard sex chromosome and evaluation of candidate sex differentiating gene R-spondin 1

Background: Scant genomic information from non-avian reptile sex chromosomes is available, and for only a few lizards, several snakes and one turtle species, and it represents only a small fraction of the total sex chromosome sequences in these species. Results: We report a 352 kb of contiguous sequence from the sex chromosome of a squamate reptile, Pogona vitticeps, with a ZZ/ZW sex microchromosome system. This contig contains five protein coding genes (oprd1, rcc1, znf91, znf131, znf180), and major families of repetitive sequences with a high number of copies of LTR and non-LTR retrotransposons, including the CR1 and Bov-B LINEs. The two genes, oprd1 and rcc1 are part of a homologous syntenic block, which is conserved among amniotes. While oprd1 and rcc1 have no known function in sex determination or differentiation in amniotes, this homologous syntenic block in mammals and chicken also contains R-spondin 1 (rspo1), the ovarian differentiating gene in mammals. In order to explore the probability that rspo1 is sex determining in dragon lizards, genomic BAC and cDNA clones were mapped using fluorescence in situ hybridisation. Their location on an autosomal microchromosome pair, not on the ZW sex microchromosomes, eliminates rspo1 as a candidate sex determining gene in P. vitticeps. Conclusion: Our study has characterized the largest contiguous stretch of physically mapped sex chromosome sequence (352 kb) from a ZZ/ZW lizard species. Although this region represents only a small fraction of the sex chromosomes of P. vitticeps, it has revealed several features typically associated with sex chromosomes including the accumulation of large blocks of repetitive sequences

Neurological outcomes at 18 months of age after moderate hypothermia for perinatal hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy: synthesis and meta-analysis of trial data

Objective To determine whether moderate hypothermia after hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy in neonates improves survival and neurological outcome at 18 months of age